


Forthcoming

by NoGoodTuna



Category: Black Clover - Tabata Yuki (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Catboys & Catgirls, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Original Character(s), Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, otp prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28532556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoGoodTuna/pseuds/NoGoodTuna
Summary: While competition can be healthy, it can also be distracting, enough so that sometimes unintended consequences are made.
Relationships: Asta/Yuno (Black Clover)
Kudos: 18





	Forthcoming

“Last one to the top is a rotten egg!” Asta shoved past his friend as he hopped two then four steps upwards.

His friend was on his tail in a hurry hopping two then six steps past him courtesy of his longer stride.

“Hey no fair!” Asta charged forward and overtook him in no time. What he lacked in height he made up for in strength, speed, and stamina.

They charged upwards and stepped over the writhing bodies of shamans and clerics defeated in battle that littered the narrow stairway. As the cobblestone walls rattled, they were bathed in dust and other debris. Like the bodies beneath them, they barely batted an eye at their surroundings as they focused on their goal, besting the other. Not even the sounds of magic clashing against magic like fireworks crackling could distract them.

“No, you don’t.” Right as the archway leading to the keep's upper chamber came into view, Yuno tugged Asta's tunic.

“What even?” Though he stumbled he didn't fall as he grabbed his friend’s hand.

“Wait, what!?” He stared bewildered as the soft warm hand he thought he grabbed was not there. What was there was an afterimage that faded just as fast as he expressed his surprise. “You used magic for this?”

A magical doppelgänger, an afterimage, of his friend was not only a trick that he was familiar with but also a magic that always left him stunned whenever it was deployed in their usual games of cat and mouse.

A grunt was all the response he received as his friend dashed forward and made headway on the finish line. Asta moved reflexively as he regained his composure. He changed his footing focusing all energy on the balls of his feet and launched himself forward like the ground was a trampoline.

His shout filled the air as he and his friend emerged from the archway at full speed. Only when they hit a massive round table in the center of the keep did they stop. 

“I win!” The taller Yuno looked down on his far shorter friend as their voices mixed.

“No, I win.” They pointed at themselves as neither admitted defeat.

“I said I win.” Asta was on his tippy toes doing his best to look his friend in those amber eyes of his as he was chest to chest with him. Yuno whipped his head aside avoiding him and his green eyes as he too repeated his words.

“Meowden, tell him that I won, tell him.” Before Asta could even tap the catboy familiar that always nestled in his ashy blond hair, he and his friend were grabbed upside head by a massive flame shaped like a hand. They clawed at those hands as if they could get them off, but they couldn’t. The flames were hot to touch, searing their hands and their heads.

The pain faded as the flames took on a much cooler temperature, becoming nothing more than decoration. Curious, the teenagers abandoned their resistance and craned their heads upward meeting the heated gaze of their lady commander, Mereoleona. 

“Cut it out, there’s more important things here than your silly games.” She gestured towards the keep full of mages and swords people who looked at them as if they were children. “Need I remind you that raiding this keep requires your full and total attention?”

“Sorry.” Yuno lowered his head as he ignored the stares of most others in the room. “Won’t happen again.”

“It will happen again, and it'll keep happening again until I best Yuno.” Asta fidgeted about like a feisty little puppy. “He may be taller, cooler, and better looking than me but I'm stronger than him and I'll prove it. Just watch me Yuno.”

“Silly Asta.” Yuno smirked as he glanced at him. “I’ve watched you for years and nothing’s changed beyond you getting shorter, more annoying, and less attractive than me.”

Before Asta could retort, he and Yuno were grabbed by the color and spread apart by the lady commander. “I said can it you and you don't egg him on.”

Although they sent charged gazes to one another they said nothing.

“Good, and you, stop sleeping.” Her focus turned to the catboy familiar who stretched and yawned from atop his perch on Asta's hair. “And keep your charge in check.”

“Meow tried but he didn't listen. Meow sorry.”

“Try harder.” She hardened her gaze before tossing it to the prying eyes of those around them. “Knights, we’ve driven them to the shadows from whence they came. Now we will exact revenge for what they did to our people. We will pay them back double, no triple what they’ve paid us in heartache, pain, and disrespect.”

The room temperature rose as a fury beyond all fury enveloped her being. Flames emanated from her and filled the keep with light as if she were the sun. A sign of her determination, no one turned away as they howled and shouted with her as they fell united in such an indomitable feeling. 

They bore the pain of seeing loved ones stolen in the dark of night only to be found decapitated with their heads upon stakes dotting caves across the countryside. Horrific, it sent the nation to war.

“Find the inner sanctum.” Mereoleona focused her flames around her fists and slammed them on the table splitting it in pieces. “Invade it and annihilate them. Show no mercy. We will defeat them today. Now go!”

Roars and shouts filled the air as most everyone dispersed through a broken wall that revealed an interior passage leading downwards.

“Yuno!” Asta nearly shouted another challenge when his ear was pawed. “Meowton?”

“Meows thirsty right meow.”

“Right meow?”

“Meow.”

“Yuno.” Asta tugged his friend’s sleeve. “Milk meow please.”

“Meow?” Yuno narrowed his eyes.

“Yeah.” Asta nodded and gestured to the softly purring catboy. “Right meow if you don’t mind.”

Though confused, Yuno still pulled a bottle of milk from his pants. Much longer than Asta’s, they were the only pants between them with pockets deep enough for it.

Asta cupped his hands as Yuno poured the milk into them. The catboy purred happily before floating to his hands. There he lapped the milk up until it was gone. 

As he licked Asta's hands dry, the two teenagers turned to one another and smirked. They knew exactly what they were going to say and charged down the passage.

“Betcha Sister’s apple pie that I can defeat more than you.” Asta chuckled as he ran ahead.

“Bet you can’t.” Yuno picked up his pace

“We’ll see about that.”

Within moments they were underground, shaking off the chill and the stink of dead rotting bodies. They ignored the heads upon heads that were atop staves as they focused forward where light and chanting came from a room.

Asta pulled his sword from off his back as Yuno grasped a wand in his pocket. Upon entering the room, they yielded their weapons with finesse and ability catching the clerics and shamans by surprise.

Or so they thought. Balls of holy magic were flung their way as bodies of women and children fell limp on the alter from which they sat. Competitive thoughts pushed aside, the teenagers felt themselves growing hot as they bore witness to the immediate wrongs their enemies committed.

Empowered, Asta swung his sword with all his might while Yuno used the full power of wind magic. Enemies fell in defeat as they received fatal blows from swords and debris turned killing devices from the wind that propelled them.

Enemies poured into the room from archways around them. They flung balls of light at the teenage knights, but it didn’t stop them. It only invigorated them.

Or so it seemed. The holy magic grew stronger as the casualties mounted making what took one blow take four and a gust of wind take many gusts.

Breathing growing haggard and attention waning, Asta narrowly avoided getting hit as he tripped backwards on a corpse. He nearly fell but he found himself landing against a wall, no his friends back.

“Yuno?”

“Asta.” Yuno wiped sweat from his chin as he threw him a tired yet relieved look.

“You were-”

“I was not.” Yuno tore his gaze away and responded dryly. “Only a coincidence.”

“Heh cute.” Asta grinned relieved yet proud that he could count on him being there for him. It brought back a memory where Sister would get on them for being at each other’s necks all the time. “To think we'd find ourselves bonding in a place like this.”

“We are not bonding.” Yuno said as if he recalled the same memory where Sister would force them to spend time in such a pose while balancing on the tips of their toes, to build trust and faith.

“Yes, we are.” Asta countered as he threw him a look. “Only our bond could explain what you just did.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Can meowtwo stop flirting. We're fighting right meow.” Meowton hurled a hairball right at a looming ball of holy light.

“Were not flirting or whatever that means.” As Asta swung wildly, missing the ball that Meowton handled, he barely noticed the swelling warmth and fidgeting of the teenager pressed up against him. “We’re not Meowton we’re not.”

Before Meowton could respond he was hit by a ball of holy light. He flew from his perch and hit the wall with an incredible thud. All eyes and ears were trained his way as the cobblestone rattled and shook before crumbling on his body.

Yuno was quick to summon a massive gust of wind that blew rocks, corpse, and enemy alike into the nearest wall. Asta, meanwhile, dropped sword and attention as he clambered over any and everything to dig his catboy familiar out.

Tears welled in his eyes as he saw the crooked tail that always brushed against him and calmed him, the fading pulsating body that was always curled against him or on him that relaxed him, and eyes soft yet dim that always encouraged and excited him. He held the catboy against himself as he held his cheek as if he could will whatever mana he could and channel it into him. Being that he was a swordsman, he lacked magic.

“Yuno.” He reached for the hem of his friend’s robe and grabbed it as if some of the mana he had could seep into him. If only he had mana then he could bring his familiar, no his friend, back to life.

Feeling nothing but the chill of the air, Asta let his friend go and hugged the catboy. Tears speckled the boy’s cheeks as memories of the day he rescued him from a traveling circus, befriended him, and encouraged him to form a bond with Yuno to remain in the world with him filled his mind. He couldn’t bring himself to smile from the memory of the catboy rubbing his head against his leg and meowing all happy like since the bond was formed. He wanted him to do so now, to meow, to tease him, to rub his head against his chest and fill him with warmth.

Warmth manifested on his shoulder as Yuno placed a hand on it as he knelled beside him. He whispered words of comfort and departure as the catboy finally vanished as if he were never there.

Realizing nothing was there Asta dug his head against his friend chest and cried, and cried, and cried. He barely noticed the fresh warm tears that fell against his forehead and ran down his cheeks.

They remained as they were as shouts of victory and praise resounded through the hallways. They held each other as their companions flooded into the room blasting the alter and all the staves, apparently the source of the enemy’s holy power. They grasped each other’s hands and wrapped an arm around each other as they were eventually shuttled into their base camp. A blanket was draped over them as they sat on a log in front of an open flame.

As people played festive music and danced, they tuned them out. They could only think of the catboy who would have been there urging them to dance or compete as they were so prone to do.

“Should I have been forthcoming?” Yuno mumbled as he stared vacantly into the fire. “Would it have kept us from falling distracted?”

“Yuno?” Asta croaked as he stared at him.

The hand in his tightened as Yuno maintained his focus. He said nothing as if he were simply voicing a thought that weighed him down.

“Talk to me.” Asta urged.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what.”

“For today.”

“Yuno?”

Yuno remained silent as he clenched a fist and sighed. His gaze hardened on the fire as if he found a new resolve and a new determination as if he would do everything, he could not lose someone important to him ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Well had an itch to write for the fandom again. 
> 
> Friends had a writing prompt where we needed to insert some cat into it, so I decided to give the BC characters a catboy familiar. Thought he was cute.
> 
> Also there is another prompt in this, some dialogue otp prompt too.
> 
> Also, pre-slash...though, Yuno has feels.
> 
> Hope it worked somewhat. Will get to finishing my other stuff, this year.


End file.
